Page 88 of Born into Madness
While my mom laughs, fully expecting Sasha to join in, he becomes deathly still beside me, and when he speaks, his tone is very different from the one he uses with me. “You talk about your daughter like that?”
My mom’s laugh dies a quick death, and for just a second she has the sense to look ashamed, but then she shakes it off and says, “Cindy knows I’m joking.”
“You’re not joking,” Sasha says, refusing to let her brush this aside. “You’re trying to make fun of her, and you’re trying to make her feel small, and I don’t like that. Cyn is gorgeous, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, but the truly rare thing about her is that she’s just as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside.”
He pulls me even closer and adds, “I’ll be having a salad with her, because I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit here and fill my stomach with ham while she’s gnawing on a cucumber slice and a bowl of mashed potatoes.”
“Hey,” Billy says from his seat at the table. “You can’t come in here and be rude to Cindy’s mom.”
“I wasn’t rude to her. You have no idea how polite I’m being right now,” Sasha tells him as he leads me over to the table. He pulls a chair out for me while the two of us dive head-first intolet’s get this the fuck over withmode.
Billy ignores him and takes a cigarette from his front shirt pocket, but when he reaches for a lighter, Sasha growls, “Don’t even fucking think about it.”
“Excuse me?” my stepdad asks with the cigarette dangling from his lips.
“She has asthma,” Sasha says, absolute disbelief coating his words. “Did you smoke in front of her when she was living here?”
“None of your goddamn business,” my stepdad says.
When I look over at Sasha, his jaw is tense and I can tell he’s trying really hard to not reach for the knife that I know is resting against the small of his back right now. I put my hand on his thigh, smiling at him when he turns to look at me. The tension softens when he meets my eyes, but I know it’ll be right back as soon as we break eye contact.
Trying to salvage this as much as possible, I smile at my mom when she brings over two bowls of salad and tell her it looks good. She puts a full plate in front of Billy and then sets her own down before taking a seat.
After a few minutes of awkward chewing, my mom asks, “So, Sasha, what do you do? Are you a student?”
“No, I work for my family,” he says.
Curious, my mom keeps going. “What do they do?”
Sasha shrugs and stabs a cucumber with his fork. “A little bit of this and a little bit of that,” he says, keeping it as vague as possible.
Billy snorts and grabs his fork. “I think that’s code for unemployed.”
Sasha lowers his own fork and looks over at him. “No, that’s code for we’re independently wealthy, and I don’t need to work a 9-5 job to make ends meet.”
My stepdad takes a drink of his Coke and then looks at me. I try not to cringe at the hate in his eyes. “I guess that means you’ll be quitting school. What a waste of fucking money that was,” he scoffs. “Couldn’t even make it two full years.”
There’s a loud clatter as Sasha’s fork hits his bowl. He takes a breath, forcing himself to be calm before he says, “You’ll get every goddamn penny back, I can promise you that, and Cyn isn’t quitting anything. She’s brilliant. She can do whatever the hell she wants, and I’ll be right by her side cheering her on while she does it.”
My heart is so full it makes my chest feel tight, and when he looks at me and says, “Ya khochu uyti,” I laugh because that was supposed to be my out. His blue eyes are begging me to get him the hell out of here before he loses it, and I’m more than okay with bailing early.
“We need to go,” I tell my mom. “I’m sorry, but this wasn’t a good idea. I knew it was a mistake, but I thought maybe youmight be happy for me, and I wanted you to meet the man I’ve fallen in love with.”
“It’s just sudden,” my mom says.
“That’s not all it is,” Billy adds. His eyes narrow when he looks me over. “Are you pregnant? Is that what this is about?”
“You son of a bitch,” Sasha growls, but I grab his hand and grip it tightly.
“I’m not pregnant,” I say in a rush. “We just fell in love and want to get married. I’m not trapping him with a baby.” I glare at my stepdad, ignoring the smirk he gives me.
He makes a show of grabbing his cigarettes and heading for the front door. When he’s gone, I let out a sigh of relief. Wanting a few minutes to get myself together before we leave, I look over at Sasha and say, “I’ll be right back. I need to use the bathroom.”
He searches my face when he asks, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I promise. I’ll be right back.” I lean in and kiss him before standing and heading down the hallway to the bathroom. I hear my mom asking Sasha if he has any brothers or sisters right as I turn down the L-shaped hallway and step into the bathroom. I don’t need to use it, I just need to splash some water on my face and remind myself that I don’t need these two assholes in my life anymore. They obviously don’t give a shit about me, and I don’t know why I continue to put myself through this. My family might be small with just Sav and Sasha in it, but I feel more love from those two than I ever felt from my parents. I don’t need to do this anymore. I can walk away to protect myself. It’s not selfish to not want to endure this anymore.
More determined than ever to move on, I leave the bathroom and run into Billy. He’d been waiting, hovering near the door and blocking my exit so I have no choice but to take a step back. I hit the doorjamb as he steps in closer.
